I don’t know enough about dinosaurs to be sure but I have heard that some of them were hot-blooded and may have given birth to live young, so it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch if it turned out that there were dino-mammals.

Linneaus originally classified humans as members of a group he called quadripeds (along with all other four limbed animals). People got upset that he called hands feet and did not like the classification. So he invented the category of mammal named for the mammary gland, reasoning hat people could not deny having nursed at their mothers’ teats.

Sauropsida (including all living and extinct reptiles, dinos, birds and some others) split from Synapsids (so-called “mammal-like reptiles”(terrible term), including Dimetrodon, and mammals themselves) something like 300-320 million years ago.

Dinosaurs, as a clade of Sauropsida, showed up about 231 million years ago, meaning they missed out being on the mammal branch by at least 69 million years.

At least some dinos were virtually certain to have been endothermic and tachymetabolic. It is possible that some where not, but evidence for those traits show up in both major dinosaur lineages.

As far as egg laying, we have many dinosaur eggs from many different branches. It may be possible that some gave birth to live young – some snakes do, as do some sharks and others. But they have have eggs that are held internally for a time and then hatch in the womb, before the young are birthed. It is very, very different from the eggless, placental arrangement of most mammals. If any dinosaurs did have live birth it certainly would have been like what snakes and sharks do.

Um, to be a mammal they would have to be descended from mammals. Thus, clearly not dinosaurs. Egg laying mammals only exist because they split off from the rest of the mammalian line before mammals developed live birth and stopped laying eggs. If a line of mammals developed into something similar to a dinosaur it would not be a dinosaur. It would be something with similarities to a dinosaur that is a mammal. Actually… that makes me think of a Rhino!

‘That is not evolution, that is metamorphosis. The development of Caterpie into Butterfree could not make this more clear. I find that the persistent misuse of the terms to be inspiring something in me, which I believe to be an emotion. Perhaps the one called “annoyance”.’

well there are naturally hairless kitties, so that drops a chunk of doubt onto the rest of your absolute assertions …… Note: Science is a methodology and the subject or question may not be all that awesome [sadly].

Or maybe she’s overlooking it due to mixed and confusing emotions, her desire for Billie overwhelming her desire for sobriety etc. subconsciously though she can’t overlook it, and recriminating behaviour slips through, hence mixed messages…. (Ie welcoming her in, opening up, at the same time telling her she’s not supposed to be there and or threatening to punch her)

Don’t worry, they wouldn’t fight. They never do; their dynamic is more one of ‘She advances slowly but relentlessly; she flees in panic terror but keeps finding her pursuer inexplicably appearing in front of her wherever she goes’.

Was in a crowded fast food place when a seven year old announced that one of the adults had used the C word, by which he meant crap. He went on loudly about the C word for about three minutes before his parents could make him stop. Ahhh. Family.

Agreed. Though it might also be that the real guilty one is Willis, and he is guilty of perpetuating that damn “Will they, won’t they” thing that made the X-files so popular and made the Star Wars prequels terrible.

This. Now that Ruth isn’t behaving in a fucked up way – in fact, now that Ruth is providing stability for Billie – a kiss might result in a different outcome. Even back then, Billie kissed for back before pushing Ruth away. Let’s see if Ruth will actually try again though, because it seems like she’s respecting Billie’s perceived rejection like a decent person.

Billie’s been sending a hell of a lot of signals that she might be interested. I mean, there is the fact that Ruth is basically the only person who understands her so she probably does also want to have a real friend, but taking into account that Billie knows Ruth likes her, she does seem to be acting overly friendly.

Billie’s complaint about the kiss was “bongo shouldna shoved me”. She’s never made any complaint about bongo trying to lick her tonsils. If Ruth tried it again without leading off with an elbow to the sternum, I bet she’d get a much more positive response.

I ship them as hard as the next gal, but she said “FUCK OFF.” “bongo shouldna shoved me” was later, regarding her concern for Ruth.

My guess is that Billie reciprocates, but Ruth’s timing was utter shit, what with it being in the middle of Billie’s angst and right after a request for stability; Ruth decided to respond to that with violence then licky-style. That isn’t stability. Maybe if Ruth actually can stick to a caring persona (Or lack thereof, rather) they’ll be okay and there can be lesbian happies that aren’t Leslie’s (who is herself boned anyway). Course, now that I say that, Willis will ensure it does not. damn you, willis!

Willis is not kind enough to give us that joy so soon. It will be weeks, maybe months. But the longer the pain is before it happens, the less likely he is to destroy such a beautiful thing before our eyes. Hopefully.

The readers’ reaction to this phase is a mix of :
Enjoying the teased relationship way too much.
Cursing the Author for being such a tease.
Making Fanfictions in order to cope with the delayed satisfaction.

And what all these reactions do is to create such a huge build up to the Payoff Phase which will go one of the 2 ways: either the payoff is worth it or a huge disappointment(as in Duke Nukem Forever disappointment.)

man, i read through the entire archives last night and almost the entire time i thought Ruth was a singularly horrid person even despite the general vague feeling that there was some arguably morally exculpatory background behind her horridness, and now this arc is happening and my expression is pretty much the same as hers in panel three

i’m not sure why but i think the most fitting thing to say here is DAMN YOU WILLIS

Ruth stole the uniform and vandalized it during the first week or so (she was using it to force Billie/Sal to get their roommate agreement taken care of).
Later, Billie swiped the uniform back a day or so after their ruckus in the hallway, when Amazi-Girl carried Billie off the scene.
Now we find out that since then Ruth (using her master key, no doubt) got back into Billie’s room to retrieve the uniform in order to make repairs; this probably occurred after their heart-to-heart about their drinking problems. But when?

DAMMIT WILLIS, IT’S BEEN OVER THREE YEARS REAL-TIME BUT ONLY MAYBE FIVE WEEKS DUMBIVERSE TIME. WE NEED A TIME-LINE AROUND HERE!!!

It’s not even five weeks. This is, I believe, the fourth Sunday. The first Sunday was arrival day. The second Sunday Joyce took Dorothy to church, Billie jumped Danny, and Dorothy kissed Walky. The third Sunday Joyce took Ethan to church, Ruth dropped in on Billie for beer and TV, and Dorothy cast her body into the cragged shame pits of the lustwolves. And the fourth Sunday began with Sal strangling Joyce.

Ruth informed Billie that she was holding the uniform hostage on the first Tuesday.

The brawl where Amazi-Girl spirited Billie away was the first Wednesday.

Billie snuck into Ruth’s room on the first Thursday, and came out of the closet, with her uniform, Ruth’s booze, and blackmail photos, in the wee hours of the morning on the first Friday.

On the second Monday, Sal returned to the room to find Billie drunk and wearing the still-damaged cheerleader uniform (and then Billie tried to put the moves on Sal).

The Kiss was the third Monday night, and then Ruth locked herself in her room for the next two days. (It seemed longer than that…)

The fire alarm, discussion in Ruth’s room, follow-up floor meeting, and Ruth giving Billie the key were all the third Wednesday, and then it was Timeskip With Dorothy until Freshman Family Weekend, which has been the third Saturday and fourth Sunday (today!).

I’m actually working on putting together a spoileriffic timeline, but I’ve only gotten up to the third Sunday so far. I’m pretty sure about the timing of those third-week events, but not 100%.

This is the fastest updating comic I read (and I read quite a lot) and yet it has one of the lowest comictime:realtime ratios. Somehow, though, I don’t mind at all.
If it went at a faster pace we wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of detail and character development. In fact this is probably one of the more realistic ways of writing fantasy since it’s a blow by blow account of just about every moment in the characters’ lives.

Considering he just did a Kickstarter to make a visual novel, I don’t see him getting back to serious work on the comic for years. I understand and am sympathetic about his medical problems, but I do not like the fact that he makes a living on getting funding for projects he will never finish. They still haven’t made, much less shipped, books that people ordered years ago. They haven’t been shipping store orders. AFAICT Fred does about five hours of work a month, but he’ll happily take 300k for a project he’ll never finish when he can’t even update his own comic.

How long has it been in Freefall? 2421 pages in 15 years. Apparently, that’s something like 3 weeks of in-universe time there? And #500 had “a day is just 24 hours, but that one felt like it took a year and 37 weeks to get through”, which would be .. “only” 267 strips?

You know, I feel like David Willis is going to burn this ship to the ground and give both Billie and Ruth different significant others to be with. I don’t know why I feel that way, but it’s the worst-case possibility I can think of. ._.

Oh I can think can think of worse cases than that.
#1: They can’t work out a relationship with each other OR anyone else and and descend into further self destructive behaviors and are miserable for all time.
#2: They get together and are happy, but one of them dies tragically, and the survivor ends up with a vastly inferior new love interest (that’s not even a Roomies reference so much as a Buffy the Vampire Slayer one)

Willis-drawn, regularly-cycling gravatars are assigned to people who don’t already have one. It’s a nice feature that cuts out the subconscious “this person is a SECOND-RATE CITIZEN OF THE INTERNET” effect that a lack of avatar sometimes has.

Now, we all know that men can’t “win over” lesbians (unless said man is Vin Diesel), and it’s disrespectful to the entire lesbian population to suggest otherwise (unless said man is Vin Diesel). Hopefully Willis understands one of the fine points of storytelling, that there is a double standard… lesbian characters should be fully capable of “winning over” straight women…

Billie is bi, no, its not a double standard (don’t further the jerkery gay people go through) if hypothetically a lesbian won over a straight woman” although its dumb and unrealistic, and its still dumb and offensive if the dude were Vin Diesel, who is by no means an avatar of unfettered sexiness at any rate.

Okay, now I want Billie to just be honest with Ruth about her drinking, have Ruth get mad and/or upset, then 7 months from now (irl) we can have the reconciliation, which in the timeline of the comics will be within a week.

Alternately, Billie really DOES stop drinking and we see a panel with her throwing out the booze. I’m good with either.

I know you’ve got this stuff planned out, loaded in the system to auto update and all that jazz (or Huffer, or Tracks….or Cosmos…)…

but PLEASE have these two sit down and TALK about that kiss. I don’t care if they don’t sleep together for another few weeks in comic time, but I really would like to see these two at least address the issue of the elephant in the room.

When do these kids study? Lab reports? Homework? Will all but Dorothy and Dina fail their freshman year? Walky may have been able to skip through high school on talent and power of observation but this is college. (Even if it is Indiana.)